Applying AI to some of the world’s biggest challenges

Through research, engineering, and initiatives to build the AI ecosystem, we’re working to use AI to address societal challenges.

At Google, we believe that AI can provide new ways of approaching problems and meaningfully improve people’s lives. With AI, we have another tool to explore and address hard, unanswered questions. What if people could predict natural disasters before they happen? Better protect endangered species? Or track disease as it spreads, to eliminate it sooner?

AI can help, but it’s not a silver bullet: tackling these questions requires a concerted, collaborative effort across all sectors of society. At Google, we believe that we can meaningfully contribute, drawing on the scale of our products and services, investment in AI research, and our commitment to using and developing AI responsibly. We’re doing that through AI for Social Good, a program that focuses Google’s AI expertise on solving humanitarian and environmental challenges.

Our work is centered on two pillars: applying core Google research and engineering efforts to projects with positive societal impact, including partnering with experts, and empowering the ecosystem with tools and resources through initiatives like the Google AI Impact Challenge.

Google AI Impact Challenge

Working together to apply AI for social good

Google.org issued an open call to organizations around the world to submit their ideas for how they could use AI to help address societal challenges. We received applications from 119 countries, spanning 6 continents with projects ranging from environmental to humanitarian. We selected 20 organizations to support. These selected organizations are receiving customized support to help bring their ideas to life: coaching from Google’s AI experts, Google.org grant funding from a $25M pool, credit and consulting from Google Cloud, and more.

Get started with machine learning basics

We’ve developed a guide with educational content to support social impact organizations interested in using AI. Whether you’re a novice or interested in upleveling your ML skill set, get started by exploring our guide.

Floods are the most common and the most deadly natural disaster on the planet. By collecting data on various environmental and geographic factors that influence flood activity, we’re able to synthesize that information with AI to improve warning systems.